


sleep apnea

by softgrungeprophet



Series: Peachy [7]
Category: Venom (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Commitment, Cuddling & Snuggling, Early Relationship, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Multi, breathing problems, eddie doesn't eat enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 09:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18140501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softgrungeprophet/pseuds/softgrungeprophet
Summary: Despite a little uncertainty, Eddie sleeps over at Flash's place for the first time.





	sleep apnea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spoiler1001](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoiler1001/gifts).



> In [this little fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18122948), set sometime after Flash and Eddie are married, I mentioned Eddie having inconsistent breathing while he sleeps.  
> Spoiler1001 was curious about how Flash first reacted to that, once they spent time sleeping in the same bed (not counting the hotel room) in a situation where Flash would notice for the first time.
> 
>  
> 
> This is set around August, a few months after their picnic date and a month or so before the Red Goblin attacks NY.

Dirty dishes from their dinner sat on the table, stacked and waiting to be carried to the sink.

"Come on, Eddie." Flash crossed his arms in his seat, trying not to frown but probably failing. "I'm not asking you to _marry_ me, I just want you to stay the night. Like a sleepover!"

Eddie hesitated.

A leather jacket wrapped up around his until-that-moment exposed arms and he rumbled, "We have an apartment."

"Okay!" Flash gestured toward the door. "Your apartment, then. We can leave right now if you want."

Eddie frowned, a wrinkle forming between his dark eyebrows. "You wouldn't like our apartment."

"Jesus—" Flash sighed and pressed one of his hands to his face. He wasn't gonna get mad.

He wasn't gonna get mad because while he didn't know a lot of the specifics of Eddie's life, he knew that the man had been through at least as much as Flash himself had, and he was nervous, and commitment was scary, and Flash knew how that felt, but...

"Please, Eddie."

He just wanted some alone time after dinner and to maybe not spend the night alone for once, and being on the receiving end of that hesitation made him feel all kinds of weird, unpleasant feelings.

"If you decide you really can't stay, that's fine; I won't force you, but... if we're gonna keep dating I wanna be able to ask you to sleep over after dinner without it being a big deal like this every time."

Unspoken: the alternative. A breakup after three months.

A stupid reason, probably, but...

Eddie glanced away, fingers drifting almost idly—but probably very intentionally—over one sleeve. A few tendrils slid over his knuckles and receded. His jaw clenched, but then he sighed, and relaxed as the leather sank away and exposed his bare arms again. He nodded. "Okay."

He finally looked back up to meet Flash's eyes. "We'll stay with you."

***

The minute they settled onto the couch to watch a movie, the symbiote wrapped around Flash's waist to tug him close into Eddie's side—Eddie draped his arm around Flash's shoulder, and Flash leaned into him. Warm, and solid... A little pointy under all those hard muscles. Flash recognized that underfed, malnourished build for what it was, from being in the Army, and his time compiling presentations on nutrition and fitness for his students. He'd been a little skinny like that, once or twice, himself. Not so big, of course, but...

He leaned back a little to look at Eddie.

Eddie raised his eyebrows in return. "...What?"

Flash gave him a grin. "You should come over more often so I can fatten you up."

"Wh—" Eddie looked down at himself. "What's wrong with the way I am now?"

Flash and the symbiote both leveled a disbelieving stare on him.

He crossed his arms.

Flash rolled his eyes and put a hand on Eddie's very square jaw. "Eddie..." He got his other hand up there, too, to cup Eddie's face. "Your cheeks are _sunken_. You don't eat enough." He pulled Eddie closer to him, so he could lean back against the arm of the couch with Eddie's head on his shoulder. "You gotta take care of yourself."

Eddie buried his face in Flash's neck and mumbled, "I forget."

"I know."

Eddie clung to him a little. "I'm not used to this."

"I know." Flash brought his hand up to run through Eddie's short hair, careful to keep his white anti-venom inside as the symbiote joined his tender touches to soothe Eddie. "We can help take care of each other, though."

Eddie hummed.

***

The longer into the night they spent together, the more Eddie relaxed, and with that ease came a more bold sweetness that led to an absolute flood of kisses. Some of that confidence from that night in the hotel; from cocky public displays of affection and workplace phone calls.

Of course, Flash gave as good as he got, and they must have spent at least an hour together lying in bed with their arms wrapped around each other and the symbiote twining between them, trading kisses and too stubborn to actually go to sleep.

Eventually, though...

Eddie fell asleep first.

Flash needed to pee, desperately, so he left Eddie in his bed for a quick bathroom break.

When he came back he settled in at Eddie's back, pressing his nose to Eddie's neck and draping one arm over his side.

It took him a moment, but as his own body slowed and calmed and quieted, and as the silence made itself apparent as it always did, he began to notice a peculiarity in the way Eddie breathed.

Occasional deep, low breaths. But then some stuttered, and he would stop for a moment before almost gasping. He didn't snore, weirdly. Just kept stilling, for a moment almost like he'd died. But then back again.

After a few minutes, one moment in particular seemed like it might last forever, Eddie unmoving under Flash's arm but still just as warm.

"Eddie?"

Eddie sighed, finally, shifting in his sleep to lay on his back.

Flash rested a hand on his chest for a second, barely aware that a little bit of Anti-Venom had snuck out from his arms and shoulders until the symbiote poked at one of his fingers with a chirp.

"Oh—" Flash pulled away. "Sorry, bud." He turned onto his other side, to grab his phone.

To Google.

Flash painstakingly typed out, "stop breathing in sleep," and waited for the results to load.

A tendril snaked over his shoulder, curious, as he read through the first result—sleep apnea, and its symptoms. He turned his head slightly and kissed the symbiote before murmuring, "He's got this? Can't you fix it?"

The symbiote swayed in a way Flash could only assume meant "No."

But to which part?

It poked at his phone screen, to close Google. It opened his notepad and very slowly began to type—"scars in brain and lungs make breathing unusual."

Flash frowned. "And you can't fix it?"

That negative sway, again.

He supposed that made some sense... it couldn't heal Flash's legs, so why would it have been able to fix Eddie's scars? For all Flash knew, it was just as severe and extensive of an injury as his... only internal and embedded, rather than removed.

Flash put his phone back on the nightstand and turned—he rested his head on Eddie's erratically rising-and-falling chest with a soft frown.

The symbiote curled up around his face in a comforting caress.

He fell asleep at nearly four in the morning, listening to Eddie's heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: "Flash Worries About Eddie"  
> turns out Eddie's real fucked up but you know, flash knows what that's like so it's okay.
> 
> again, this is before the red goblin incident, so before flash almost died, and therefore they have not had sex yet. they just make out a lot.
> 
> Originally my idea was that it was just from having a symbiote but I amended that slightly, based loosely on an idea Spoiler1001 suggested which was that Eddie has permanent scarring (from Anti-Venom's removal, in that case, but I went with something slightly different).
> 
> My thought is that Eddie's got some scarring in his lungs and in parts of his brain from metastatic spreading of his adrenal cancer, since he was in the laaaate stages when he got diagnosed, and when he got rid of the symbiote he was basically just waiting to die, cause at that point... there was nothing anyone could do. even though he started applying to experimental treatments and did chemo. 
> 
> so that probably damaged his body a lot in the months leading up to his third suicide attempt (the one in The Last Temptation) and while Mr. Li healed him of his cancer and he got Anti-Venom, there was some slight lasting damage—enough that his brain has trouble regulating his breathing (and probably some other things) particularly while asleep, leading to a kind of central sleep apnea... 
> 
> the symbiote keeps him from waking himself up from his breathing irregularities, and it's really mostly a problem when he's unconscious (though a little bit awake too, it's just not as noticeable to him or others then because there's other stuff happening, conversations, etc.)
> 
> theoretically the symbiote could probably regulate his breathing but it's not worth the effort, in its mind, particularly because its own ability to reflexively use osmosis to oxygenate his cells and stuff means he's not strongly affected by it as far as oxygenation goes. 
> 
>  
> 
> also the symbiote is typing by accessing eddie's knowledge of words and shit but it might have also learned to read English in its time on earth.


End file.
